Skyfall Stunt's James Bond Dies

Remember the big stunt at the Summer Olympics?

There was a tie-in to the then forthcoming 007 movie, Skyfall. (Skyfall's trailer splashed the prophetic Aurora building on the screen before The Dark Knight Rises began.)

A James Bond double "fell" into the Olympics stadium, along with a double for Queen Elizabeth, as both jumped from a small plane.

Both jumpers were in danger, as such stunts are no easy task. And now the James Bond double is dead.

Mark Sutton, 42, the stuntman who parachuted into the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympics in London dressed as James Bond alongside a double of Queen Elizabeth II, was killed on August 15, 2013, in a wing-diving accident in the Swiss Alps.

Sutton, a former Royal Gurkha Rifles officer for the British Army, died after jumping from a helicopter and crashing into a mountain ridge only minutes from the French border near Trient, Switzerland, the Swiss police said. (The Gurkhas are a unique unit in the Army with a reputation of being amongst the finest and most feared soldiers in the world. All Gurkha soldiers are recruited in Nepal. British Officers are recruited from across the UK and Commonwealth.)

Mark Sutton (left) - played James Bond - and Gary Connery (right) - played the Queen - are pictured in their wingstuits last year.

The Olympic stunt was a highlight of the last year’s opening ceremony and followed the showing of a film in which Daniel Craig, the actor who currently plays James Bond, called at Buckingham Palace to meet the real Queen Elizabeth and escort her to the Olympic Stadium.

Danny Boyle, who designed the opening to the Games, said Sutton and Gary Connery, who doubled for the Queen and jumped with Daniel Craig's substitute from a helicopter over the Olympic stadium, had "left indelible memories for people from all walks of life all over the world … disciplined and brave in situations most of us would find terrifying, Mark was also a gentle and thoughtful man," he wrote in the Evening Standard.

Police in the Swiss Valais canton said Sutton had died after jumping with a friend from a helicopter while wearing a wing suit above the Grandes Otannes area, close to the French border. The men had jumped from a height of 10,826ft (3,300m) at around 11am and had planned to land close to the hamlet of Le Peuty, near Trient.
Jean-Marie Bornet, of Valais police, said Sutton's injuries were so severe that experts had to use a DNA test to confirm his identity. "We do not know what caused his death but we know it was immediate. The weather was good but when a pilot takes part in this sport the aim is to fly very close to the ground or mountainside. If you do this at speeds of 200kmh [125mph] the margin for error is very small." Source.

Sutton is a name that means "south."

The Storm Is Coming: 3-3-13

The slogan for the new nonfiction series Vikings is "The Storm is Coming 3.3.13."

On History.

The name Viking came from the Scandinavians themselves, from the Old Norse word "vik" (bay or creek) which formed the root of "vikingr" (pirate).

The Dark Knight movies enjoyed telling us that "a storm is coming."

"There's a storm coming, Mr. Wayne."

Selina Kyle: There's a storm coming. 

Bruce Wayne: You sound like you're looking forward to it. 

Selina Kyle: I'm adaptable. 

~ The Dark Knight Rises, 2012

So too did James Bond in Skyfall.

M: Orphans make the best recruits. 

Bond: There's a storm coming.

Skyfall, 2012

Even earlier, "a storm is coming" was heard in the Terminator movies.

Vikings appears to wish to copycat the feel of Game of Thrones.

The Old Norse feminine noun víking refers to an expedition overseas. It occurs in Viking Age runic inscriptions and in later medieval writings in set expressions such as the phrasal verb fara í víking "to go on an expedition." In later texts such as the Icelandic sagas, the phrase "to go viking" implies participation in raiding activity or piracy, and not simply seaborne missions of trade and commerce. The related Old Norse masculine noun víkingr appears in Viking Age skaldic poetry and on several rune stones found in Scandinavia, where it refers to a seaman or warrior who takes part in an expedition overseas. The form also occurs as a personal name on some Swedish rune stones. There is little indication of any negative connotation in the term before the end of the Viking Age. Regardless of its possible origins, the word was used to indicate an activity and those who participated in it, and it did not belong to any ethnic or cultural group.

In Old English, the word wicing appears first in the Anglo-Saxon poem, "Widsith," which probably dates from the 9th century. In Old English, and in the history of the archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen written by Adam of Bremen in about 1070, the term is synonymous with pirate and a Scandinavian. As in the Old Norse usages, the term is not employed as a name for any people or culture in general. The word does not occur in any preserved Middle English texts. Source.

Skyfall: Bond's Dark Knight

There is much to be said about Skyfall, the 23rd James Bond film. Let me share some initial items and images to begin the pondering. (There are no spoilers in such an early posting about this film. I just saw it tonight, as it opens in the USA.)

It is remarkable how the tone and underlying themes of The Dark Knight Rises and Skyfall overlap. I have already discussed the Aurora backdrop in Skyfall.

Skyfall's Silva, the psychopath, is this film's Joker. Bond is Batman.

James Bond: Everyone needs a hobby... 

Raoul Silva: So what's yours? 

James Bond: Resurrection.

Skyfall, 2012

M: Quoting Tennyson's poem Ulysses: Though much is taken, much abides; and though 

We are not now that strength which in old days 

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are... 

One equal temper of heroic hearts, 

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will 

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Skyfall, 2012

In a scene where Bond and M first reach Scotland (shown here), the following exchange occurs, as noted:

M: Orphans make the best recruits. 

Bond: There's a storm coming.

Skyfall, 2012

BMT 216A ~ The same registration for this vehicle in Goldfinger and Thunderball.

Sarah Connor: What did he just say? (asking about what a Mexican child said)

Gas Station Attendant: He said there's a storm coming in. 

Sarah Connor: [sighs] I know.

~ The Terminator, 1984.

The night is darkest just before the dawn. And I promise you, the dawn is coming. 

~ Harvey Dent, The Dark Knight, 2008.

Selina Kyle to Bruce Wayne: You think this can last? There's a storm coming, Mr. Wayne. You and your friends better batten down the hatches, because when it hits, you're all gonna wonder how you ever thought you could live so large and leave so little for the rest of us. ~ The Dark Knight Rises, 2012

Later...

Selina Kyle: There's a storm coming. 

Bruce Wayne: You sound like you're looking forward to it. 

Selina Kyle: I'm adaptable. 

~ The Dark Knight Rises, 2012

Aurora Again: Skyfall Anew

We are entering a powerfully synchromystically, yes, synchrocinematically significant weekend. Veterans Day (old style, November 11; new style November 12), plus the opening of Skyfall, Lincoln, Citadel, and even A Royal Affair, is one of those conjunctions of metaphors we have grown to view with some caution.

Midnight showings on November 9th, hopefully, for Skyfall will be without any Aurora surprises or undertones, which occurred when The Dark Knight Rises opened.

Colorado's Aurora shooting appeared to have been a "red dawn" event, a milestone awakening incident of which we can only guess what it might mean in the future. The word, Colorado (red) and Aurora (dawn), were a rather meaning combination, a lexilink of some note, as it turns out.

You may recall, Skyfall was there from the beginning. Literally.

I went to see The Dark Knight Rises with my 22 year old son, at 3:15 pm, on Friday, July 20, 2012. One of the first visuals that stuck me, before the film, was what I saw in the preview to the then-forthcoming James Bond movie, Skyfall. At the 39-40 second mark of the trailer, quite readable on the IMAX screen, a frame appeared with a vivid skyline. Right there, up front was a building with a red sign that read clearly, Aurora. 

Aurora screen capture from Skyfall, from the July 20, 2012 trailer.

This is the Aurora Plaza building in Shanghai, China. Therefore, even though The Dark Knight Rises shooting took place only in Aurora, Colorado, due to the Skyfall trailer being shown with the opening of the Dark Knight film everywhere, Aurora was "in" all of the Batman/Bane showings too.

Three movie openings to be aware of for November 9th:

In Skyfall, Bond's loyalty to M is tested as her past comes back to haunt her. As MI6 comes under attack, 007 must track down and destroy the threat, no matter how personal the cost.

Steven Spielberg directs Daniel Day-Lewis in Lincoln, a revealing drama that focuses on the 16th President's tumultuous final months in office.

The Norwich Aurora [of Connecticut]...reported that Mr. Lincoln had been beaten for Congress in 1848 by Thomas L. Harris, a "glorious Norwich boy" and then beaten for the Senate in 1858 by Stephen A. Douglas. Democrat Harris had indeed been elected to Congress from Springfield in 1848, but he defeated Mr. Lincoln's former law partner, not Mr. Lincoln. But the facts did not get in the way of the Norwich newspaper's tirade against Republicans "and the other eminent prophets and saints of the abolition." Source.

The new movie ends with the assassination of the President.

This Lincoln movie is not to be confused with the project that the late Tony Scott had been working for the National Geographic Channel, entitled Killing Lincoln. The two-hour Killing Lincoln, which was being produced by Ridley and Tony Scott's Scott Free Productions, is based on Bill O'Reilly's best-selling book Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination That Changed America Forever. The film is due to air in early 2013 and production began in Richmond, Virginia in July 2012.

In the Irish horror film Citadel, Tommy Cowley lives a quiet life in a decaying tower, an apartment complex, with his highly pregnant wife. The couple is attacked one day by a group of hooded alleged young thugs. Ciarán Foy's Citadel envisions a towering U.K. housing project that must be destroyed to kill the inhuman creatures breeding within.

This Citadel is not to be confused with the Mass Effect fantasy site that is a space station named Citadel, where the Task Force Aurora is located, headed by Dr. Garret Bryson, a group created to investigate ancient legends about the Reapers.

Will 11-11 be a special anniversary of note this year? Or maybe 11-12?

President Obama was declared the winner of the election at 11:12 pm on Tuesday. I think someone said Nate Silver predicted MSNBC would declare Obama the winner of the Electoral College at exactly 11:12 pm.

Sources for new opening movie info included Rotten Tomatoes, IMDb, and Wikipedia.

Gemstones Are Forever: Bond, Elrod House, Onassis, Hughes & JFK

What is the most synchromystic, conspiracy-laden James Bond film?

The answer is an obvious one. It happens to be the cinematic expression that revealed Ian Fleming's leaking of the Gemstone Files, in one of the 23 Bond films that have been made through 2012: Diamonds Are Forever (1971).

The visual and design legacy of Frank Lloyd Wright is to be found prominently in this movie. FLW-trained architect John Lautner's Elron House is one of the important filming locations, serving as the Howard Hughes-clone character Willard Whyte's "winter home."

Before learning from FLW in the 1930s, John Lautner's background was in Michigan, and he got his start in building at 12 years old. His family built a rural residence together, a cabin they named Midgaard, "a word from Norse mythology that described the home of mankind, situated between the land of ice and the land of fire."

Considering Lautner's Elrod (Old English for "noble counsel") House was built on client interior designer Arthur Elrod's 23 acre property in Palm Springs, California, in 1968, and the film was released in 1971, the shooting occurred soon after the house was constructed. 

The following three images are from the Elrod House in Diamonds Are Forever. The House is the focus of Bond's meeting with the two female guards – Thumper and Bambi – who are the precursor characters for future acrobatic sci-fi fight sequences (including those seen in Blade Runner and Kill Bill). It is also the location of Bond's release of the "real" Willard Whyte character.

The Internet has many recent photos, including the following, of Lautner's masterpiece, as well as the floor plans, because the Elrod House has been up for sale for a bit under 14 million dollars for a few years.

The Elrod House is a "gem" and thus a metaphor for the entire underlying, less than subtle theme, so apparent in the title of this film, Diamonds Are Forever. But do not fool yourself, these are hardly ordinary gemstones.

A detailed analysis of Diamonds Are Forever is included in David Hatcher Childress' chapter, "James Bond & The Gemstone File" (pages 69-90), contained in Inside the Gemstone File: Howard Hughes, Onassis & JFK by Kenn Thomas and David Hatcher Childress (Kempton, Illinois: Adventures Unlimited Press, 1999). Here is one short selection from the greater chapter [with a few comments added by me]:

In the filmed story of Diamonds Are Forever, the plot remarkably parallels The Gemstone File years before the Skeleton Key to the Gemstone File was ever circulated. The plot begins in the diamond fields of South Africa, as in Fleming's original book [1956], but soon diverges from the book to bring in elements of The Gemstone File and the Mafia/Las Vegas/Area 51 entanglement.

Bond is assigned to follow a trail of diamonds from South Africa to Amsterdam and then to Las Vegas where he is confronted by the Mafia. In one scene, James Bond sneaks into a secret facility in the Nevada desert outside of Las Vegas. This facility is the location of Mercury, the exit off that interstate highway leading to Area 51, the top secret space facility in south central Nevada rumored to house flying saucers and alien technology. 

 

Once inside the facility, Bond pretends to be a worker in a lab coat and walks into a room where a German engineer is in charge. The man is clearly meant to be Werner von Braun. After witnessing the faking of the Apollo Moon missions, Bond steals the lunar rover and escapes into the desert. Does Diamonds Are Forever mirror the truth about NASA being part of a secret conspiracy? In the movie, the space facility and the Mafia are working together.

The movie, however, turns out to be the story of a kidnapped billionaire named Williard Whyte (played by Jimmy Dean of pork sausage fame), who is held in seclusion by [Ernst Stavro] Blofeld, exactly as [Bruce] Roberts claimed [American billionaire Howard] Hughes [sharing the double initials HH, just like Williard Whyte, WW ~ LC] was held captive by [Greek-born billionaire Aristotle Sokratis] Onassis.
Bond frees the kidnapped Willard Whyte and proceeds, with the help of Tiffany Case (played by Jill St. John), to attack Blofeld at his secret base: an oil platform either off the coast of Texas or California, the movie does not indicate which. [Yes, it does. The secret oil platform is shown off Baja California on a global map of Blofeld's empire, which matches the Onassis reach, btw ~ LC.] Bond destroys the oil platform but Blofeld escapes to reappear briefly in the 1981 film For Your Eyes Only when he is finally dispatched permanently. By this time, Onassis was dead as well.
Indeed, the parallels between Diamonds Are Forever and The Gemstone File are many:
*Willard Whyte is held captive in Las Vegas by Blofeld and the Mafia.
*Howard Hughes is held captive in Las Vegas and elsewhere by Onassis and the Mafia.
*Blofeld owns a casino named Casino Royale in Monte Carlo and has various "doubles."
*Onassis owns a casino named Casino Royale in Monte Carlo and Onassis has various "doubles" concocted by Onassis and Maheu.
*Blofeld owns oil fields and oil platforms. He is protected by foreign countries.
*Onassis owns oil tankers and has an exclusive deal with Saudi Arabia. He is protected by foreign countries such as Greece and Monaco.
*Blofeld owns his own island, high-tech yacht fleet, and private army.
*Onassis owns his own island (Skorpios), has a high-tech yacht fleet (Onassis owned many, many ships), and controlled a private army that allegedly went beyond the Mafia to the Marseille underground and the CIA and FBI.
*Diamonds Are Forever was about the secret NASA base outside of Las Vegas, and the use of diamonds to make a space-based laser system, one that could project holographic images into the sky.
*The Gemstone File is about synthetic rubies and their use by Hughes in laser research and Roberts' later use of these synthetic rubies as "gifts" with an attached "Gemstone Letter" that revealed certain behind-the-scenes activities of Onassis, the Mafia and the CIA to important and wealthy individuals. Las Vegas was the scene of Hughes' kidnapping and imprisonment, a city well known to be owned and run by the Mafia and their overt partners.

As Kenn Thomas and David Hatcher Childress theorize in their book, Inside the Gemstone File, Ian Fleming, a former British intelligence agent, used his books to unfold the secrets that he had discovered about Onassis and others through material that would someday be called the Gemstone File. Considering that several of the Bond books were published long before many of the events were exposed in the dots that have since been connected and then shown in the films, Fleming walked a narrow, dangerous path.

The Gemstone File is a conspiracy theory document attributed to Bruce Porter Roberts. In 1975, "A Skeleton Key to the Gemstone File" appeared and is generally attributed to Stephanie Caruana. The "Key" is purportedly a synopsis of Roberts' documents that presents a chronicle of interlocking conspiracies, including claims that world events since the 1950s were shaped by suppressed information, the names of supposed shooters of President John F. Kennedy, and suggested connections between a number of political assassinations which occurred within a relatively short time frame. Many of these show up in Ian Fleming's James Bond novels, and thus in the movies that followed.

The Gemstone File proposes that Aristotle Onassis, JFK's father Joseph P. Kennedy, and other prominent figures were involved in various schemes to forward a vast global conspiracy, involving the Mafia and corrupt politicians, brutal oil and drug cartels, rogue military operations, and more. It also posits that early in 1957, Aristotle Onassis had Howard Hughes kidnapped from his Beverly Hills Hotel bungalow; that Hughes suffered a massive brain injury during the forcible kidnapping, and that Hughes was subsequently a virtual prisoner of Onassis on his private island Skorpios and injected regularly with morphine, while Onassis took over the operation of Hughes's considerable financial affairs, including airlines and U.S. defense contracting. Post-Fleming author John Gardner would overtly title one of his James Bond books, Scorpius (1988).

Aristotle Onassis and Jacqueline "Jackie" Lee Bouvier Kennedy Onassis

The Gemstone File portrays Onassis as the main force behind the election of John F. Kennedy as President, and subsequently, Kennedy's assassination in 1963. According to the documents, Lee Harvey Oswald was a patsy in the JFK assassination plan and was linked to the Central Intelligence Agency, and to Mafia connections in Lafayette Square, New Orleans, with Jimmy Fratianno, Johnny Roselli, and Eugene Brading as the real shooters. The Gemstone papers claim that John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and Joseph P. Kennedy were involved with the Mafia and Onassis, and when the Kennedy brothers attempted to break away, they were murdered. We know too what happened between Onassis and Jackie O, after the death of JFK. Wild theories and thoughts, perhaps, indeed, but then when connecting dots in conspiracy speculations, when are such not radical, raging, and rough?

"On December 20, 1947, Jacob Rubenstein changed his name to Jack L. Ruby by decree of the 68th Judicial Court of Dallas, Texas. The etymology of the term 'Ruby': (French) rubis; (Spanish) rubi; (Latin) rubinus, carbuncle….The term 'Jack Ruby' was once used by pawnbrokers to indicated a fake ruby. In iconography a ruby or carbuncle symbolizes blood, suffering and death." ~ from King-Kill 33 by James Shelby Downard.

Childress writes further in his Bond analysis: "Ian Fleming [at the age of 56] died of mysterious circumstances in Jamaica on August 12, 1964, of a 'heart attack.' According to Bruce Roberts, the 'sodium morphate' used by Onassis and the Mafia made the victim appear to have died from a massive heart attack….In August of 1964…Fleming was planning to fly from Jamaica to New Jersey to meet with Ivan T. Sanderson, a biologist and former British Intelligence agent. As a zoologist, Sanderson had written a number of books, including one on Bigfoot and Yeti, and appeared frequently on radio shows and even Johnny Carson's Tonight Show."

The late Ivan T. Sanderson (a friend of mine) was a Fortean researcher and author on topics including the Philadelphia Experiment, as well, a subject about which Sanderson appears to have been corresponding with Fleming.

Childress continues, "Fleming never made it to his rendezvous with Sanderson. He died of a sudden heart attack on August 12th, 1964 at his home in Jamaica…[on] the 21st anniversary of The Philadelphia Experiment (August 12, 1943)….Was Ian Fleming killed because he knew too much about such things as the Kennedy assassination, The Philadelphia Experiment and the genesis of UFO technology?"

We perhaps shall never know, but awareness of the world may be revealed, frighteningly, more through watching Diamonds Are Forever than turning in to the nightly news, where the selling of automobiles and drive-through-hamburgers is the goal.

There has been fifty years of James Bond movies. Much is unfolded in fiction worth our attention. The 23rd Bond film, Skyfall, will be released in November 2012.